March 26th, 2008
You may have noticed a new section on the right side menu of the blog over the past week. It’s a new widget called Lijit. It’s actually pretty cool and allows you to add all of your social networking links and a search box to your page. Any search results are then displayed on top of your existing blog, so you are not losing any visitors. In addition to search and social networking capabilities, the Lijit widget also allows you to look up all search and traffic going through your site. I just started fooling around with the widget and the social networks it’s linked up to. I need to clean everything up and work with it some more.
Once you are a member, you can access the admin area which provides a lot of detailed stats. The screenshot below is just one of the many stats sections available.
Another very cool feature about the Lijit widget, is it’s live scrolling search on it’s main page. Looking for some new post ideas? Just sit on the Lijit home page for a while and see what interesting topics people are searching on other blogs. Not to mention how cool it is when you see your blog scrolling across the screen!
Lijit is a free widget and adds a bit more interactivity to your blog or web site. Sign up is pretty quick and it will automatically detect your social networking accounts with your username. Once you are a member you can login and see all the full features through the backend. Check it out and let me know what you think.
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March 25th, 2008
Next week at this time I’ll be getting read to head to San Francisco, CA for EliteRetreat. The event should be killer. Shoemoney already had a ton of gifts in store for attendees of the event, and some surprises as well. I can’t wait to hear what some of these marketing geniuses have to say. Especially keynote speaker Guy Kawasaki. I’ll definitely be keeping you updated with info and pictures from the event.
The event is being held at the San Francisco InterContinental. The Intercontinental is a brand new luxurious hotel with 32 floors (made up of glass) and just opened in February 2008. They have a decent web site and from what they have written up, it should also make for a nice office away from the office, while I’m there. I’ll be in San Francisco for a week and still looking for some cool places to visit while there. If anyone has any recommendations on events, locations or landmarks I should try and visit while I’m there, please let me know!
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March 25th, 2008
Millions of users flock to TechCrunch every day to fill their startup and industry news hunger. What was started in only June 2005, has turned into a massive beast of a blog and a very large cash cow. CNNMoney just released a great article they did on Mike Arrington, founder of TechCrunch. This was a really great read and the first line of the article got me inspired to write this post. “Mike Arrington tells me he has one wish: He’d like to write about startups.” With all the success of TechCrunch, Mike Arrington’s real passion is to focus on what TechCrunch was really founded around. TechCrunch brought in $800,000 in 2006 and $3 million in 2007. So will Mike continue his position and blog for love… or money? (seems to me, he’s got the best of both worlds)
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March 23rd, 2008
Happy Easter everyone… I hope you like the cliché on the title. 
It may sound corny, but it is true. I’ve been making money online for such a long time now, and it wouldn’t be possible if I didn’t continually change markets and spread my knowledge across many different niche areas and ways to market. I’m looking forward to 2008, because I’m starting new sites and marketing efforts in a bunch of different areas. While I’ve focused on social network, newsletter, video and entertainment sites, I will am in the process of going live in many new areas this year such as applications, mobile marketing, product fulfillment and more. One of the major drawbacks to opening up to new areas, is that you will have to decide which are the best for your business and time spent. Sometimes we find new projects get in our way, and as much as we would like to work on them and make them succeed, will they help or hurt your overall bottom line.
Are you stuck in a one niche area or have you expanded your knowledge and marketing efforts to new areas?
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March 21st, 2008
With FireFox market share on the rise, up to nearly 20% as of 7/11/06, there is no doubt that they are putting pressure on Microsoft and their Internet Explorer. I would think that market share is much higher among us internet marketers and bloggers. With FireFox v3 ready for primetime, I can only imagine that market share will continue to rise. Since FireFox is “just a browser“… and a savior to so many web users, how much money are they actually making? The browser is free, updates are free, the killer add-on are free… so where is the money coming from to provide all of this? One word…. Google!
Every time you load up your FireFox browser, you are sent to a lovely customized Google home page. You also have the option to use the Google Search Box at the top right the browser. FireFox isn’t providing Google to all of their users because it is the search engine of choice! They are cashing in, and making millions! Think of it as Google Adsense on steroids!
Last October, the Mozilla Foundation released their 2006 financial statement. Once the report was released, it was clear that Google was the parent that gave Mozilla it’s life. This financial statement told everyone that Google provides 85% of the revenue for the Mozilla Corp. subsidiary. As reported by The Register, “The footnote lists “concentrations of risks”: “Mozilla has a contract with a search engine provider for royalties,” reads a footnote buried at the bottom of the statement. “Approximately 85 per cent of Mozilla’s revenue was derived from this contact.”. Of course, the search engine they speak of is Google.
So how much money does Mozilla actually make? In 2006, Mozilla reported revenues of $66,840,850. Compared to their 2005 earnings, that is an increase of 26 percent. The CEO of Mozilla says “As in 2005 the vast majority of this revenue is associated with the search functionality in Mozilla Firefox, and the majority of that is from Google“.
How awesome of a cash cow product is Mozilla’s FireFox? Are you still using Internet Explorer, or have you made the move over to FireFox? I hope this article gives you a new train of thought every time you open up your FireFox browser and use the search box or homepage… like all of their other millions of users, you’re making them rich!
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"With great power comes great responsibility".... my Uncle Ben told me that. Haha, just kidding! I'm Zac Johnson and I've been making money online for over 10 years now. In short, I started making money online while I was in high school... but my passion for marketing and making money goes back way earlier than that. I created ZacJohnson.com to help motivate you to start making money online, and live the life the you always dreamed of.